The present invention relates to control systems for a printing press.
In the past, printing presses have utilized plate cylinders in conjunction with blanket cylinders to form a printed image on a moving web of paper. Such presses have required plates to be prepared containing the image, and such plates have been secured directly on the outer surface of the plate cylinders by suitable locking mechanisms in order to transfer the image from the plates to the blanket cylinders.
More recently, the images for printing have been directly formed, such as by electronic imaging, on the outer surface of a printing cylinder which is utilized in conjunction with the blanket cylinder in order to transfer the image from the printing cylinders to the blanket cylinders for printing the image on the web. However, some difficulties have been encountered with this process, such as misregistration between separate printing cylinders, possible fan-out of the web when the ink is placed on the web, and dot gain in the image. There has not yet been a satisfactory procedure for eliminating this result in the case where the images are directly formed on the printing cylinders.